194 THE entomologist's record. 



On April 26th, I started on a long cross country journey from 

 Nimes to Digne, where I had arranged to meet Mr. E. F. S. Tylcote, 

 for a fortnight's collecting. The distance as the crow flies cannot, I 

 suppose, be much over 100 miles, but this involved ten hours' travel, 

 and half-a-dozen changes of train. The first sight of Digne was, to 

 me, somewhat appalling ; I had pictured to myself from the map, a 

 town situated at the junction of several valleys with low and gently 

 sloping sides ; as we walked along the bottom of one of these valleys 

 the next morning, I rapidly realised that my preconceived ideas were 

 not on all fours with the reality, and that, if specimens were wanted, 

 hard work must, of necessity, be entailed. The sides of the ravines, 

 for one cannot well call them anything else, are not the easiest of collect- 

 ing ground by any means ; most of them rise up, almost sheer, for a 

 thousand feet or so, and are crowned by utterly unclimbable cliffs. 



]\fy emotions on arriving at what had been described to me as the 

 best spot for Thais vwdesicastc will not be soon forgotten, and, after 

 viewing it from all available points, I began to think my kind in- 

 formant had been having a little joke, for there did not seem a possi- 

 bility that an animal less fitted for climbing than a goat could scale 

 those rocks ; one finds, however, on actually experimenting, that the 

 slopes are rugged and broken, and that, when properly shod, one can 

 get about with comparative ease almost anywhere. The accompanying 

 plate will give a fair idea of the district. The hill behind the town 

 is known as La Collette, and is very good ground, the valley in the 

 centre contains the "Les Dourbes" road, whilst the flat range of moun- 

 tains in the background is " Les Dourbes " chain ; it is the especial 

 haunt of the rare Erebia scipio, and many other good species. The 

 valley containing the baths, possibly the best ground near Digne, runs 

 laterally out of the Dourbes valley to the right. The species occurring 

 at the time of the year of my visit are so fully dealt with by Mr, Tutt 

 {E7it. lu'conl, ix., p."^221), that I shall not attempt to go into details of 

 the majority. The season was a very backward one, and many species 

 that we might have expected to obtain in numbers were thus either 

 not out, or only justemerging. 



One of the first objects of our search was Erebia epistygne. This 

 fine species was flying in some numbers on one of the smaller hills 

 forming the side of the valley of the Eaux Chaudes torrent, and was 

 met with in single specimens on most of the lower hill-tops we 

 visited ; it is a handsome species on the wing, the pale blotches 

 showing conspicuously, and these, in conjunction with its method of 

 flight, give it a very Satyrid-like appearance. 



Probably the best insect occurring at Digne in the spring is An- 

 thocaris tagis var. bdlt'::ina, which is hardly to be found elsewhere ; it 

 is apparently always rare, four or five specimens being considered a 

 good day's work. The best method of obtaining the species appears 

 to be to climb to the top of the mountains immediately round the 

 town, and to stand in wait at the edge of the clift's, with which most 

 of them are crowned. A. var. belledna is usually to be seen flying up 

 and down along the face of the rocks, which themselves are quite 

 unworkable, and occasionally coming within striking distance. 



Leiicopliasia duponchdii was not common, three or four specimens 

 each day constituted our bag, probably the species was not fully out. 

 I obtained a good series of Noviiodes melanops, including one or two 



